CTV Roundup

On Tuesday, Magnite announced it had acquired Streamr.ai, which specializes in developing AI-generated assets for small businesses to use in their CTV campaigns.

To QR or not to QR, that is the question. But here’s a better one: Shouldn’t TV studios first guarantee that the products featured in made-for-TV shoppable moments are ones viewers actually want?

Back when the Pure app first launched in 2012, it was a completely anonymous hookup app. Now, it’s using CTV as a way to explain its rebranded vibe to prospective new users.

CTV advertising platforms often try to sell small businesses on how closely the channel resembles the digital marketing avenues they’re used to working with, like paid social. For Wildgrain, a DTC subscription service for artisan breads and other grain-based foods, this argument proved to be very compelling.

According to Adam Paul, executive director of media alliances at LiveRamp, the old-school programmatic ads – the ones bought across multiple platforms without regard to context or audience – are underperforming on CTV these days.

I didn’t attend WWE’s “Monday Night RAW” event in Brooklyn for love of wrestling. No, I was there to check out the ad content – to the point where I set up a brand-new ad-supported Netflix account from my phone to see where and when the ad breaks actually start.

My YouTube creator obsession has me fascinated by an ongoing trend I’ve noticed in the CTV industry: A lot of companies that produce free ad-supported channels rely on content that already exists on YouTube.

Into every generation, a universally hated children’s television character is born. This, of course, poses a unique problem in a world of smart TV operating systems and content recommendation engines.

Here’s what Head of Performance Media Josh Palau had to say about how Pfizer currently navigates the CTV landscape, including why having your own hands-on-keyboard experts is key and how new ad formats can be slow to accommodate pharmaceutical brands.

There’s something about travel commercials – especially ones produced by tourism boards – that always make me want to pack up and go to whatever fun new location they’re telling me about.

Advertisers love new ad formats, especially on connected TV. Just look at how many platforms announced their own during the IAB NewFronts and TV upfronts last month. But it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.

You’d think the United States Congress would have bigger things to worry about right now than figuring out where and when football games are airing… and yet.

Will programmatic buying inevitably lead to a repeat on CTV of what happened with digital media publishers? We asked Roku, Tubi and NCBU that question on stage at our Programmatic IO event in Las Vegas.

Amid the glitz of TV upfront presentations, advertising executives take the stage to talk about things like new audience targeting capabilities or to ballyhoo new ad measurement partnerships. How, though, are we supposed to focus on brand lift statistics when we can all hear Lady Gaga belting a vocal warmup offstage?

Instead of simply watching ads on the big screen, consumers are now being encouraged to interact with those ads – a shift in marketing that was particularly apparent at the 2025 NewFronts presentations in New York City this week.

Outcomes measurement company EDO is no stranger to large data sets. So I sat down with Kevin in March to learn how he thinks AI will continue to transform programmatic CTV advertising. 

At VideoAmp’s “Vampfront” presentation on Tuesday, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my favorite pop culture vampire stories (in a good way).

A unit of attention doesn’t serve as a useful indicator of interest or resonance among consumers. So what does? Well, consistency certainly helps.

As the chief media officer and SVP of demand generation at Inspire Brands, Travis Freeman controls hundreds of millions of dollars of media spend every year – and he has a little request for anyone buying CTV.

TV programmers and streamers are sharing their financial report cards for last quarter – and the results are quite a mixed bag.

Since Connatix and JW Player first announced their merger in October, JWP Connatix – a temporary name for the newly joined companies – says things are going well at the six-month mark.

This year’s Super Bowl commercials relied on comic relief and highlighted noncontroversial topics, like streaming and entertainment. But a couple of commercials in the lineup still managed to stir some controversy.

This weekend, the rewards app Fetch is debuting its very first Super Bowl ad, which includes a live giveaway of $1.2 million.

Nielsen told ad buyers that it plans to drop panel-only ratings later this year. The decision signals an inflection point in media measurement that publishers and buyers have both been waiting for.

In light of T-Mobile’s plans to buy Vistar Media, Atmosphere TV’s business model shines a brighter spotlight on the grey area between connected TV and DOOH billboards.

CES is a popular destination for streaming TV publishers and video currency vendors to jumpstart the year’s dealmaking and, to some degree, prepare for the upfronts. Upfront planning seems to start earlier every year.

As the new year begins, expect CTV growth to continue blasting along with a vengeance. Experts are “bullish” on the channel and believe that many of 2024’s biggest CTV trends will continue well into 2025.

For all intents and purposes, 2024 is already over. Which means now is a fine time to see how far CTV advertising has come by looking back at some of this year’s most-read stories on AdExchanger.

The advertising industry is abuzz with the potential of shoppable television. But the concept of buying something directly from your television isn’t new; it began back in the ’80s with channels like QVC and HSN.

Now that ad-supported streaming models are becoming more profitable, Vevo’s Rob Christensen predicts that social video will be the next big frontier to cross – or, more specifically, where “social and television converge.”